Mistake
by Karashiae
Summary: When the clock hand stops, what will happen? - Dedicated to Maiden of the Moon.


Disclaimer: Yana Toboso owns the characters.

Author: Yuriko Ootamu

Pairing: SebasCiel

Genres: Angst/Light Horror/Drama

Rated: T

Warning: OOC

Status: Completed

Notes: Take place after Kuroshitsuji II. This is dedicated to Maiden of the Moon, for the permissions she gave me to translate five of her masterpieces into Vietnamese: Spider Web, Going Soft, Nature Boy, Almost and Opus. Also, this is a gift to all of you in Japan, wish that you will never have to suffer anymore pain.

Plus, this translation is almost a re-written piece ( Still, it's not good T.T ). Don't be disappointed if you guys cannot compare two versions.

**[ONE-SHOT] MISTAKE**

All humans want to be immortal.

That wish has long rooted deeply in people's minds, no matter who they are – nobles or farmers, servants or slaves. That desire always clutches on their hearts, vaguely appears in each prayer, each blessing, and along with chores and works, it is slowly eating away their precious lifetime. Nibbling at their life like squirming worms, digging into mortals' souls with such a devilish charm, and pushing them to the endless swirl of crimes and sins in the middle of the way to immortality.

Even so, humans never stop pursuing that goal. Life is too beautiful to give up, the pleasures are still too appealing to deny. Time keeps passing by, and so on, people's efforts to escape the grasp of Death keep queuing up endlessly, mindlessly.

They, mortals, all of them are living like that, clinging on life, clinging on that silent dream, letting it burn slowly down their flickering days.

Ciel Phantomhive, is never an exception. And of course, the demon knows that truth to the core.

"You wish to be immortal, my lord?"

Amidst the hoofs' clacking sounds, inside the carriage deliberately diving in the sea of moonlight, that question falls out of his arrogant curled lips, mingling with the silvery, silken tension between them. The dead silence once again takes up the remaining space, slowly creeps into the Earl in each and every breath, choking him from the inside out.

Still, he sits there, sapphire blue gaze drifts out of the window's small frame, the color crystallized from the heart of ocean keeps floating in endless grey of the midnight orb, of the icy snow, and of the fading shadows shattering on the ground. Like a statue formed from frosty plumes, he stay, does not give a thought about the coy question. Not even a frown. Always calm and cold, just like the noble bloodline he inherited from his respectful father.

Then slowly, deliberately, croaking voice cracks open Ciel's throat, words and phrases painfully being sewed to one another. Dirty, dusty, dried – like having been forgotten for long, so long. The voice echoes from the dreadfully deathly abyss.

"Not a wrong thing to do, is it?"

And the demon just smiles.

* * *

><p>His wish, now has become reality.<p>

The Earl has been waiting for this moment since eternity. Such a tingling sensation, teasing his bony fingers with delicately raw power running through his blood, spreading out to each and every vein on the slender hand; such a flaming feeling, flickering from the depth of Hell in that tiny body, dying cerulean vision in a claret desire, slitting round pupils into two sharp crescent moons – stained with the blackest, darkest inkblood. The feeling of being immortal.

But he never anticipate the sensation that crashes over him after the fleeting moment.

Dampening. Sticky and stinking.

It takes him a second to realize, that is his own blood flowing out, bleeding out, wetting the silken fabric. And the knife holder's ruby irises are gleaming in burgundy like never before.

"You ordered me to kill you."

Those eyes aren't lying. Sparking fire flashes through dark eyelashes, glimmering in bright maroon as the one and only assurance. He wants him dead, deadly dead, perfectly dead. For some unknown reasons.

But the boy does not remember whether he has ordered his servant to do that.

How odd, still. Even right now, he absolutely has no surprise in seeing his lips curling upwards, letting out twinkling, tinkling, melodic, harmonic sounds. Velveteen. Like clattering silver chimes in the middle of falling night. In the middle of the mist thickened with transparent blood.

"The order has expired, Sebastian."

As usual, the demon obeys.

The blade is pulled out, gradually, leisurely, leaving behind the mourning wound just like the lost eye of Darkness itself, with stinking inkblood oozing out like mud and mire on a deathly graveyard. Leaving behind a brittle, broken feeling buried deep inside. Leaving behind a horrid sensation of the _cannot-be-dead_ fact.

The warmth fades.

No, this is not the pain he used to suffer. But he does not like this at the least.

* * *

><p>Sometimes, he passes by the old mansion.<p>

So old have they been, the crumbling marble pillars, the scattering dust once belonged to pretty china pots, or the rusty fences that usually caw their grieving song each time the blackened ravens' sorrowful whispers pull back the wuthering winds. So old have they been, and those ancient shadows of the past are dyed in misery even more after each somber tolling sound of broken bells, echoing, lingering on the curves of frosty fog beyond the forever grey stones. So long, long ago, since the last time this place had someone set their feet on its dusty ground.

That's why, sometimes, he passes by the old mansion.

He does not usually recall the past, true. If in the old days, Ciel Phantomhive never got buried in history, then right now, the demonling has no reason to spare a second thought to something does not even exist anymore. But still, seldom, he finds himself standing on the stained granite floor, standing below clusters of deadly dry fruits dangling on brittle branches, standing amidst the smell of fustily moist moss mingling with the darken dusk's drops and drops of time. Standing, and surprisingly asking himself, why he is standing like that.

_Why?_

Why.

The question is never answered. Instead, he often drifts his gaze away from the distant, navy horizon, and quietly returns with his former loyal butler. Quietly just like the first day the demon came here. Quietly just like the day he left this place thirty years ago. And for that question, the child once again keeps it deep inside the core of his mind, so that in a flash of time, it can again stream out, clutching tightly to the fragile pieces of soul that are left in the forever thirteen-year-old creature.

In a flash of time.

Like today.

When he looks down to a tiny dead rose.

Slowly, the flower leans against ebony talons; rotten, slender sprig is gradually being lifted off the dusty soil, and laid gingerly on the pale porcelain skin. Slim petals – dyed in lifeless color of days and months and years – deliberately fall away, leaving behind nothing but decayed anthers clinging on their last breath. And begin to cease, one by one.

With the fleeting wind.

Strange enough, a proud demon like him cannot even take his stare off the tiny, little dead flower. Staying still, the demonling silently watches the putrid pollen disappear in the misty air, as if watching the remaining of his very soul leisurely fading along with each raspy exhale. Completely. And so, quietly gazing at what used to be his favorite, swallowing deep, he calls.

"Look."

Darkness elegantly bows, smirks. Crimson laughs glitter in monotone lullaby voice. The lullaby voice of Death God.

"Sterling roses have long disappeared, young master."

Words, thought to be harmless, can wake up a part of him – a dusty, long-forgotten part, feeble just like the ancient past he has left behind. It, is painfully vague, and vaguely painful.

* * *

><p>Many years have passed, but he has always stayed firmly in his thirteen-year-old form.<p>

Countlessly, he walks along the never-ending streets under looming overcast London sky, walks around breaking dawns and falling dusks, walks in and out the mingled tension between worlds and dimensions. He does, many, too many times, that he has long lost the concept of time. Lost.

After all, why he should ever care, when both of them are the only constants in this reality.

But still, sometimes, the former Earl allows his mind to wander through the rusty, dusty old piles left in memory, and wanders till a childish smile of a certain blonde appears somewhere in his path. Thinking of Elizabeth is never something he does, even so, he often finds himself sinking in questions lately, the questions about the life of his only relative left so far.

Just like the questions about how much time he has spent in this lifeless life.

Of course, that feeling, that image fades away as quickly, quietly as they appears; like a dead dried leaf drops itself onto the pure surface of the lake – leaving nothing behind but only a few echoes spreading wide on the crystal clear mirror. Going and coming, and going and coming from times to times.

_Like the tedious sounds of the ancient clock._

_Tick._

_Tock._

But he does not care, not much, at least.

Until today, when he stands under the looming shadow of an oaken life, silently watching a coffin slowly being lowered into an eternal grave. The coffin which belongs to the only Middleford that has remained.

_Clink._

_When the clock hand stops, what will happen?_

_Constants will have to look back at their lives._

They have gone. One by one.

Only until now can he look at how long he has existed in this meaningless realm.

Only until now can he realize that the name _Ciel Phantomhive_ has been buried deep long, long ago; trapped inside the dull frame of the past. So long, that right now, it can barely stand on the verge of his broken mind, broken soul.

That is when he is envious to his cousin. Because she could die, and has died.

* * *

><p>Demons never sleep. But his nights rarely past away without something memorable.<p>

The devil kisses. Greedily. Hungrily. Frantically.

The demonling kisses. Painfully. Desperately. Passionately.

In the wintery breezes, the pair roll down on dusty granite floor, dappled forelocks intertwine as the kiss continues to devour their breath. Slender arms wrap around porcelain neck, ebony nails run through midnight-colored hair, raking and screeching down the arching bare back, leaving blood-red streaks trailing on sweated naked man. Crinkling silk is torn apart under hungry claws, lily-white skin does not take long to be covered with beautiful bruises – dyed in seductive purple – permanent marks of the solely arbitrary possession.

Amidst husky grunts and moans, little by little, the former Earl loses himself in tenderly lustful kisses and touches, along with the bitterly sweet cantarella born from the deepest of Hell – rising up and against the corner of his mouth each time dear whispers of Darkness fall into the velvet abyss. Spinning around in the endless swirl of passions and sins, trashing away all concepts that have been left on the rotten cover called morality of the plagued society, he once again drowns himself in the desperate attempts to regain a bit of sensation, a bit of something once called feeling, probing in his mind. A little bit of will. Of motivation. Of determination that has long, long lost.

He, a demon, is willing to give in to sinister pleasures, only to regain a forgotten part of his past self, when hesitations and shames still lived in the core of his soul, when he was still a human.

"_Ah–"_

Moonstone head jerks back, pushing out lustful hoarse moans, crushing his thoughts, his needs, his dreams into thousands of tiny, twinkling broken pieces of glass, shattering in the space of his mind. Twinkling. Like scattering pieces of crystallized mist before each breaking dawn.

And of course, broken glasses always hurt people when they are reckless.

In the blackest shade of night, the former butler's ruby eyes still sometimes burn in a deadly burgundy. Color that can freeze the darkness surrounding the two, freeze even the moist plumes escape in each shallow, rapid exhale. Freeze up every bit of emotion that had ever existed in the blurry old days.

This is the path he must walk on for eternity. Walk on, with hundreds of coiling thoughts and unfinished hopeless dreams.

Only until now has he realized that, when the lost things are not to be achieved, obsession will be the last remaining in each and every soul.

Sometimes, demons are to destroy.

Right beside the bloody oaken door, is raw flesh tangling on broken ribs, claret dews dropping from ivory sprigs are no different from pure ruby pearls. Next to the torn limbs, greasily lays a small puddle of liver smashed in sickened green liquid. Squelched near the bluish black kidneys is a nice mess of slashed up entrails, putrid acid ooze out of the squashed stomach, mixing with the stinking smell of iron in the ruined room. And right behind his foot, where the indistinguishably torn corpse quietly lies, gelatinous jam is slowly bleeding out from a crack, dampened skull. Such a masterpiece, created by a creature living outside the flow of time.

Throwing away the half-eaten purple organ, the fledgling licks off the remaining, scarlet vision mixes with cloudy cobalt outside the rusty window, waiting. Waiting for him to come with the sweetened cantarella lingering on the crescent sneer, waiting for him to come to chase away the probing, insisting feeling that has been clutching on the boy for so, so long. The sensation that has been growing with time – wanting, desiring, yearning for something plain, but has gone far from his reach.

That is, to live like an ordinary mortal. Or simpler, to die.

"How impressive, my lord," caws a raspy laugh. From the darkest corner of the room, midnight-colored feathers shape up a cursed form; shadows and silhouettes crawling on blood and gore, leaning towards the contractor alongside with calming steps. Boiling with predators' instinct. "I believe that you have enjoyed the meal, haven't you?"

Serene cerulean once again pools up round irises; aloofly, he stays, and waits. Waiting for the stinking, decayed scent to wash away the last remaining of his humanity, waiting for his demon self to properly have its wake, waiting for the moment when endless Darkness crashes on the persisting, adamant will, along with the fantasies which are slowly eating away his eternal existence, the fate that he himself has taken on.

For the first time in his life, he wants to forget more than anything.

Anything. Forget.

"Dinner is still waiting for you, remember?"

So that he will never regret about not letting his soul be devoured.

"My apology, young master, but I'm afraid that the dinner has long rotten."

_And the demon smiles._

* * *

><p>Demons never sleep.<p>

But they do need to rest sometimes.

Under the shadow of an aged birch tree, seated a fragile, feeble doll, with a lifeless, broken outside. Seated a still doll. Seated an immortal doll.

Seated there a set moonstone locks and everlasting shoulders, along with a tired gaze clinging on half-closed eyelashes of the one once called Ciel Phantomhive.

_Once._

No more. No more existences. No more existences of anything that can remind him of what he used to be familiar with, even by little.

Nothing belongs to him on the path he has chosen himself.

"Young master?"

He does not answer. Does not react. Does not shift his attention towards the loyal companion at all, just simply stays and waits. Quietly listens to the soundless voice of time drifting through slender fingers, quietly watches the colorless gloria fading into transparent invisibility. And he waits, until cracking out from his throat a question, a query, a qualm.

"Why are you still here?"

Dried leaves rumpled and wrinkled under leather black boots. Again, Darkness bows, elegantly just like the first time he labeled himself as the Phantomhive's butler, since an almost non-existed history. Since a time which has long gone meaningless in people's eyes.

"It's your birthday, young master."

_Happy birthday._

How ironic.

He will never be able to escape this obsession, as long as he still walks on his eternal life. As long as he is still reminded of his birthday.

Rustling wind crawls on the depression – dejection – desperation of the demonling on the way to free himself from the never-ending slavery fate, from the cage made of his very own flesh and skin. And now, when he is conscious of how wrong he was in the forgotten past…

_The punishment of God to those who deny him._

"A living Hell."

It is too late.

"I'm glad that you have finally realized, my lord."

* * *

><p>"<em>To desire immortality is to desire the eternal perpetuation of a great mistake."<em>

_~Arthur Schopenhauer_

**END**


End file.
